


Just Around The Corner

by AntarcticBird



Category: Glee
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-22
Updated: 2014-09-22
Packaged: 2018-02-18 10:11:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,766
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2344622
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AntarcticBird/pseuds/AntarcticBird
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Just another first day of school, another morning in another hallway. But sometimes you don’t know what waits for you until you’ve actually turned the corner…</p>
            </blockquote>





	Just Around The Corner

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Klaine bingo prompt “Teachers.”

It's the first day after summer break and he's running a bit late already because first his alarm hadn't gone off, and then he'd spilled his coffee and stained his shirt, and then he'd had to park his car in the worst spot and sprint all the way across the parking lot to make it to his classroom on time. Three years of being a teacher and he still always feels a little overwhelmed the first day back after a long break.

There are still a good number of students left scattered around the halls, greeting their friends, chatting about their holidays, making their ways to their classrooms to get started on a new school year.

Kurt threads his way through them, a bit more hurried than they are; he really wanted to grab another coffee in the teacher's lounge before having to face a classroom full of teenagers first thing in the morning. Only then he turns a corner a bit too sharply and is stopped in a full frontal collision with a blur of bright colors and papers flying everywhere.

“Sorry, sorry, so sorry -” he mutters as he immediately bends down to start picking up the scattered papers from all over the floor.

The guy he almost ran over bends at the same time, and their foreheads smack together sharply with a dull knocking sound. Kurt does lose his balance, then, stumbles a bit before sitting down gracelessly with a thud in the middle of the hallway. At least he takes the other guy down with him, hearing his quiet groan as he topples over, arms flailing as he goes down.

“Oh god, I'm _so_ sorry,” Kurt repeats himself, and finally looks up properly, rubbing his aching forehead.

“No, no, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to -”

They guy stops talking mid-sentence as their eyes meet over scattered work sheets and inches of dirty school corridor.

“Um.” Kurt provides eloquently, feeling a light blush rising on his cheeks.

“I, uh,” the other guy answers, his own face taking on a rather reddish color as well as he blinks rapidly, mouth opening and closing around words that don't come.

He's entirely, unfairly, absolutely and utterly _gorgeous_. It's really the only way to describe him, Kurt thinks, or at least the only way he can think of after not getting his morning coffee and then smacking his head, against the forehead of the cutest man he's seen in a very, very long time, if not _ever_. 

Kurt discreetly lets his eyes sweep over him, and he doesn't have a lot of practice checking out cute guys because, hello, this is Lima, but – well. Boat shoes with no socks, sinfully tight dark pants that show off ridiculously pretty ankles (and he feels like he just climbed out of a nineteenth century romance novel, he's swooning over a guy's _ankles_ ), a well-fitting polo shirt that accents a tiny waist and maybe just the hint of an adorable little belly, an actual bow tie that should look out of place but somehow doesn't, a pair of very nice looking arms and shoulders, and above that a face that Kurt knows he'll have dreams about – the most adorably friendly smile with just a hint of shyness, ridiculous triangular eyebrows that sort of really work for him, and a mop of dark curls that are just styled enough to suggest he cares about his appearance but loose enough to still make Kurt think about tangling his fingers in them and tugging at them and … 

_Clearly_ he's spent too much time on his own this summer.

“Sorry,” he tries again, proud when his voice comes out only slightly breathy. He scrambles to his feet, quickly extending a hand to help him up too. His palms are soft and warm, he notices, feeling pleased about this for no apparent reason.

“No, no, totally _my_ fault, I was just – I was trying to find my classroom and I must have gotten turned around and -”

“You're the new English teacher,” Kurt says, finally putting all the missing pieces together, which he would have done earlier if he hadn't been shocked out of his mind by running head-first (literally) into the very embodiment of charming, sexy and beautiful, all in one person.

“I am,” he confirms. “Um. I'm. Blaine. Anderson. Blaine Anderson.” He blushes deeper, which has absolutely no right of being so cute, biting his lip. “I'm also really, really late by now, I just – this school is kind of really big, and I, I had the tour the other day, but I think I took a wrong turn somewhere and now I'm going to get fired on my first day -”

“Well, we can't have that,” Kurt interrupts his rambling, unable to keep the smile in. Even when he's tripping over his own words, Blaine Anderson is _adorable_. “I can show you, come on.”

“But then _you'll_ be late, I didn't mean to -”

Kurt dismisses the objection with a wave of his hand. “I'm okay. Come on. Let's rescue your work sheets from the floor and I'll show you the shortest way there.”

“Thanks.” Mr. Anderson hesitates for just a second, looking a bit unsure. “I, uh – I still don't know your name … ?”

“Oh.” Kurt casts his eyes down, rubbing the back of his neck, embarrassed. “Sorry, I, sorry, uhm. Kurt Hummel. Music. Teacher, that is, I teach music, it's not part of my name.” He cuts off his own embarrassing word vomit, holds out his hand again, blinking up at Blaine from under his lashes, and tries not to squeal and faint when Blaine's palm slides into his again for a firm handshake that lasts just a moment too long to be merely polite.

**

Later that day he shares a table with Blaine in the teacher's lounge for a quick lunch and a cup of coffee and spends the entire half hour trying to calm the excited-fluttery feeling in his stomach enough to keep his food down.

God, he feels like a teenager and it's embarrassing, but it's also kind of really, really awesome and he's been back in Lima for three years which is pretty much also the length of time in which he hasn't dated (if you add a few (eleven, to be exact) months) and he doesn't want to get ahead of himself. He's not even sure that Blaine (Mr. Anderson? They never exactly cleared that up) is gay. But then, boat shoes with no socks and a bow tie, and the way he smiles at him – it's just been too long, he can't help it. He can't stop looking at him.

“Have a good rest of the day,” Mr. Anderson says after they've cleared away the remnants of their lunch and rinsed out their cups. His smile is a little shy at first, going wider when Kurt smiles back.

“You too. And if you get turned around again on your way out later, let me know and I'll show you all the shortcuts out of here.”

“How would I let you know if I got lost?” he asks, “Should I just shout for you and you'll come to the rescue like a knight on a tall, white horse?” He grins, obviously joking, and Kurt doesn't even think before he answers.

“Hold on, let me give you my phone number.” He has to turn around quickly once the words are out, taking a few extra seconds to rummage through his bag with his back turned to Blaine to compose himself. He has absolutely no idea what he's doing, he's certainly never done this before, offer a guy his number after knowing him for five minutes, much less a guy he works with.

But Blaine is still smiling when Kurt turns back to him, even brighter than he was before, his own phone ready in his hand for Kurt to type in his own number.

Their fingers brush and Kurt is kind of glad he never had to go through all of this as an actual teenager; it's difficult enough to handle this flurry of emotions as a grown man with a pretty good handle on his life.

Oh god, he feels fifteen years old, and he has to go back to a room full of seventeen-year olds who expect to be taught by him, like, right this very minute. _Awesome_.

**

The thing is, if past experiences are anything to go buy, Blaine Anderson is really not Kurt's type.

He's never dated in high school, but the guy's he's been crushing on had usually been the tall, athletic type, not the smartest guys, but nice to look at. There had been dates and stuff in college, and a total amount of two boyfriends – both of them tall, one blond one dark-haired, both of them smart, interesting, well-mannered, both of them turning out to be pleasing to the eye and really nice but not really the kind of guys Kurt could see himself grow old with.

He'd sort of given up on that aspect of his life for now, he has a good job here in Lima and it's nice being near his family, and he'd always thought, one day, eventually, maybe...

And then you turn a corner in a school hallway and just like that, everything changes.

Maybe, Kurt thinks, he never really had a type after all. Or maybe he got it all wrong in the past and that's why he couldn't make it last with either of them.

Or maybe, this was just really unplanned and not anything he could have ever been prepared for and maybe it was always meant to happen this way anyway and everything else that he thought he knew about himself is not as set in stone as he thought, who knows.

Because Blaine is not his type, not at all, except for all the ways he kind of really, really is. Like the way his smile just lights up a room; the way even the worst day suddenly, inexplicably, gets just a little bit better once he sees Blaine approach his table in the teacher's lounge ( _their_ table, really, they always have lunch together); the way Blaine sometimes sings under his breath and the way he asks Kurt about his weekend and actually _wants to know_ and the way his ass looks in those tight pants he always wears, seriously, that part is just _unfair_.

Whatever it is, Kurt thinks, he's just going to have to get used to it. Because after several weeks of knowing each other he's pretty certain that it's not just going to go away.

And he sort of knows people are starting to comment on the fact that they always sit together and tend to meet up at the end of the day to walk each other to their cars, but they can just suck it up and worry about their own things, because Kurt has been waiting to feel like this for a very, very long time, and even if this isn't anything, not really, he's not going to let them have an opinion on it either way. He just wants to hang out with Blaine, all the time, actually, if that's in any way possible.

**

He's cleaning the whiteboard in the choir room after glee club when one of his students walks up to him, book bag slung over her shoulder. 

“So, about the assignment -”

“Yes?” he asks, turning around to look at her.

“It's just … that's a hell of a lot of research and I was just wondering, how important exactly is it that we -”

“Nora,” he cuts her off, trying to look serious. They have this conversation at least once every two weeks. It's not that she's not willing to work, she's just – sometimes she reminds him a bit of Brittany. “It's an assignment. For class. It is important.”

She sighs. “I figured. It's just that this week is gonna be hell anyway, your husband is making us read this entire book for his class -”

“Excuse me?” he asks, replaying the conversation in his head, trying to figure out where he skipped the part that would help him make sense of all of this.

“For his class,” she repeats, speaking slowly. “He's making us read an entire _book_ , like, from beginning to end, and we're not even allowed to use the audio book version -”

“Who?” he asks dumbly, feeling completely lost.

“Your husband.” She laughs. “You know. Short guy, wears lots of bow ties, teaches English?”

“Oh. I – we -” he swallows, blushing so dark his face feels like it's on fire. “Uh. Mr. Anderson and I are – we're not married, we're -”

“Oh, that's cool,” she assures him. “My parents aren't married either. Well, either way, could you have a word with him? Because an _entire book_. In _one week_.”

“You'll have to discuss that with him personally, I'm afraid,” he manages, voice a little higher than he'd been aiming for, trying to think of a way to correct her without feeling even more embarrassed. In the end, she just sighs and walks off, leaving Kurt standing in an empty choir room with a half-cleaned whiteboard behind him and his mind completely blank.

**

“Nora thinks we're married,” he tells Blaine as they cross the parking lot together at the end of the day and Blaine drops the stack of books he'd been carrying.

Kurt helps him gather them back up, biting his lip. Maybe he should have just let it go...

“Thanks,” Blaine says, taking the books Kurt hands him. “That's – um.”

“That was pretty much my reaction too,” Kurt says, attempting a laugh, hoping it doesn't sound too shrill.

“Yeah, I – I should go,” Blaine announces, and Kurt watches him hurry off toward his car before climbing into his own to make his lonely way home.

Where he'll spend his night very much unmarried and single, probably with his feet up on the coffee table grading assignments and trying to keep at least five minutes between his replies to Blaine's texts in order to not seem too overeager.

Yeah, he really does know how to have fun. Who wouldn't want to be married to all of that?

**

The next day, they have lunch in the teacher's lounge again and it's not awkward, thank god, because for a moment (okay, the whole night while he'd been lying awake) Kurt had sort of been worried that it might be.

It's raining outside and fall is in full swing, colored leaves, little puddles forming in the parking lot and Kurt has started sorting through his scarves a long time ago, he's always excited about the beginning of fall. It's his favorite season, after all.

“So, I know Halloween is still a few weeks away but I wanted to ask – do I decorate my classroom? Or are they going to lose all respect for me if I do?” Blaine asks, looking at Kurt over his coffee mug.

Kurt shrugs. “Some teachers do, some don't. It's really your choice. Around here, actually, most teachers don't.”

“Do you?”

“A little. Nothing too much.”

Blaine sighs. “I just feel so – overwhelmed with all of this sometimes, I'm sorry if I'm asking stupid questions.”

Kurt blinks at him. “You're really not! And even if you were, I'm happy to answer even your stupidest of questions. It's what friends are for, right?”

Blaine blushes adorably, looking happy. “Thank you, Kurt. It's just – you've been doing this for more than three years already and, for me, it's my first year out of college and I'm – you know I'm really grateful, don't you? For all the help. I don't know what I'd do without you sometimes.”

Kurt tries to breathe through the insane somersaulting of his stupid little heart, tries to hide the pleased grin behind his own coffee cup. “You'd do just fine.”

Blaine smiles at him and Kurt has to lower his eyes and look away before he does something – insane.

**

It's a rainy and cold Friday afternoon in late November and their goodbye in the parking lot is a quick one – neither of them want to linger too long in this weather. Blaine walks Kurt to his car since Kurt forgot his umbrella, then waits until he's inside before waving at him, sprinting away toward his own car. Kurt watches him go and starts the engine with a sigh, not particularly looking forward to another long weekend of being by himself with only TV Shows and books and tea for company.

Maybe he should get a cat. But instead he's probably just going to invite himself over to his Dad and Carole's for coffee tomorrow afternoon.

He doesn't check his phone until he's safely inside his house, quickly glancing at the screen before sliding off his jacket. He has a text from Blaine.

_Are you home yet? My car won't start!_

He doesn't take off his shoes, instead hits call instantly. Blaine picks up on the second ring.

“ _Kurt?_ ”

“Are you still in the parking lot?”

“ _It just makes this_ ... sound, _but it won't start, it sounds like it does but then it just_ doesn't -”

“Have you called the garage? My dad is, like, ten minutes from the school -”

“... _Not yet, I figured I'd get it to start by myself, but_ -”

“I'll be there in fifteen minutes.”

“ _Kurt, you don't have to come back here, I'll call your dad, you're_ -”

“Blaine. I'll be there in fifteen minutes. Get out of the rain. I'm on my way.”

“ _Thank you_.”

Kurt hangs up, puts his jacket back on. Knowing Blaine, he probably left the radio running all day and killed the battery.

**

It's not the battery, so instead of fiddling around under the hood in the rain, Kurt loads a wet and cold and shivering Blaine (“ _I told you to get out of the rain!_ ”) into his car, promising they'll get his dad out here to tow the car back to the garage first thing the next morning.

“How do I get to school on Monday?” Blaine asks unhappily, buckling his seatbelt.

Kurt laughs. “I'll come pick you up. Don't worry. But you'll probably have a terrible cold by then anyway, why didn't you get out of the rain like I told you to?”

Blaine shrugs.

“You looked under the hood, didn't you?” Kurt teases.

Blaine shrugs again, staring ahead gloomily.

“What were you hoping to see under there?”

Blaine sighs. “I don't even know. It just – seemed like the thing to do?”

“Well.” Kurt pulls out of the parking lot and starts down the street in the direction of Blaine's house. “Let's get you home and warmed up and then I'll call my father.”

**

He's never been to Blaine's house before but it's a small town and he knows the way, it's a small apartment block just a few minutes from the school. He pulls up in front of it, hesitating for just a second about what the correct protocol is in this situation when Blaine makes that decision for him.

“Would you like to come inside for a minute? I'll make you a Thanks For Not Leaving Me Stranded cup of tea.”

“Tea,” Kurt says, smiling. “Nice. I'd – actually, yes, I'd like that. I think.”

“Good,” Blaine says, and he looks a bit like a puppy who fell in a rain barrel as he beams at him, with his curls heavy with rain and his clothes soaked through and dripping softly all over the passenger seat. “Come on, then.”

Kurt follows him into the elevator and down a hallway and through a door into his apartment, stands in a tiny but tastefully decorated living room, soft carpet, dark furniture, lots and lots of bookshelves along the walls and an upright piano in a corner, an assortment of magazines and open books scattered across the coffee table.

He just looks around for a moment until he hears Blaine stepping out of his shoes with a low squelching sound and he turns around to him, laughing.

“Okay. Listen, why don't you go take a shower and put on some dry clothes, and I'll see if I can figure out how to use your kitchen and make us a cup of tea?”

Blaine nods, looking grateful. “Okay. I have a kettle, and there are tea bags in the cupboard, left door, middle shelf. You can use the big mugs on the shelf above the stove, they're -” he shivers in his wet clothes, wrapping his arms around himself. “I'd actually really better go and warm up.”

“Yes, go, _go_ ,” Kurt laughs, waving him off. “I can handle it.”

He has two steaming mugs of tea ready for them on the coffee table when Blaine emerges from what Kurt assumes is his bedroom, looking even tinier than usual in sweatpants and a cuddly-looking, too big sweater, his feet bare on the soft carpet.

“You really don't like socks, do you?” Kurt asks, amused, watching Blaine's cute naked feet pad across the floor toward him, looking up when Blaine sits on the couch next to him, curling his legs up under himself.

“Socks just get lost in the washing and you end up with only singles and have to constantly buy new ones and – it's just easier not bothering at all.”

Kurt hands him his mug, scrunching his nose in a fond laugh. “You're so weird.”

“And yet you're here hanging out with me,” Blaine shoots back, taking a sip of his tea, eyes sparkling at Kurt across the short distance.

“Yeah,” Kurt breathes, unable to look away. “Clearly, I'm a little insane too.”

**

Somehow he doesn't leave once the tea is gone and somehow they end up kneeling sideways on the couch facing each other, talking, sometimes at the same time, about everything they've talked about a hundred times during lunch and their walks across the parking lot – music, literature, clothes, childhoods, college, movies … one topic seamlessly blends into the next and suddenly it's dark outside and Kurt hears his stomach rumble and Blaine is leaning his cheek against the backrest, lazily blinking up at Kurt from under impossibly thick lashes.

“Should we make dinner? I think I have some things left in the fridge -”

Kurt blushes. “Oh god. I'm sorry. I really didn't mean to stay this long, I'm so sorry. I can go -”

“No, _please_ ,” Blaine says, quietly, one hand reaching out to touch Kurt's forearm, softly, carefully, but clearly with purpose. “Don't go yet.”

Kurt bites his lip, looks down to where Blaine's fingers are resting against the fabric of his shirt. “Okay … okay.”

He doesn't know what they're doing or what this is, but they've been doing this dance for weeks now, and maybe, maybe...

Maybe Blaine just doesn't want to eat alone, and even if it's just that, he'll take it. He's tired of eating alone too. And also, he kind of wants to see where this is going.

Blaine puts music on while they cook, and they chop vegetables and sing and bump their hips together in Blaine's small kitchen and then they eat on the couch, music still playing, the sounds of it mixing with the sound of rain pattering against the window outside.

After dinner, Blaine makes them coffee and Kurt kind of never wants to leave – the dark outside and the sounds of rain and the quiet melancholy atmosphere of the season make this tiny space that is Blaine's home seem even warmer, cozier, safer. And it smells like Blaine and Blaine's things are everywhere and Blaine's voice is telling him stories about growing up actually not very far from here at all and Kurt just never, never wants to leave, this is perfect, this is the most perfect night of his life, better than most of the actual dates he's been on, many many years ago.

And yet he hears himself say, “I should go,” and knows, deep down, that yes, he should. Because whatever this is, above all, it's precious and new and delicate and kind of wonderful. They can't ruin it by rushing into something, this _matters_ , this has to be done right.

Blaine looks sad, but he nods. “I know.” Then he adds, quietly, “I don't really want you to go.”

Kurt smiles at him and his heart beats too fast, he doesn't know how to handle these feelings already and nothing has even happened between them. “We could – do this again? Soon?”

Blaine nods eagerly, and when his fingers inch closer to Kurt's where their hands are resting on the back of the couch, Kurt closes the distance and takes his hand. It feels – right. Like the last missing piece finally clicking into place.

“Tomorrow?” Blaine asks. “We could – I don't currently have a working car, or I'd pick you up and we could see a movie, but what if, what if you come over again instead and I'll, I could bake something, we can watch a movie here … I'm sorry, is this, is this crazy? I don't want to freak you out, I just – it doesn't have to be tomorrow, even though the more I see of you and the more time I spend with you, it just makes me want to spend even _more_ time with you and I'm probably freaking you out, oh god -”

Kurt cuts him off by leaning forward and kissing him, a soft, lingering kiss that's little more than a press of their lips together. It's entirely chaste, completely innocent, and it's sort of the best kiss Kurt has ever had in his entire life.

“I'm not freaked out,” he says, voice low, as they pull apart. “I promise.”

Blaine still has his eyes closed, lips a little pursed, a blissful, overwhelmingly happy expression on his face. “Okay,” he whispers eventually, mouth twitching into a smile, eyes flickering slowly open. “Okay, I believe you.”

“Good,” Kurt says, and they almost knock their foreheads together as they both lean in at the same time for another kiss.

Kurt does go home, eventually, even though it's difficult to say goodnight to Blaine. But they have plans for tomorrow and probably the day after that and if he's being quite honest, Kurt is already counting down how many dates they have to go on before he can introduce Blaine to his father, he kind of just really wants his family to meet this ridiculously perfect man he's found for himself …

**

It's another rainy Friday afternoon, another fall, Kurt cleaning the whiteboard in the choir room after glee club when someone sticks their head through the door, clearing their throat. “Um, excuse me?”

He looks up, startled for a moment. “Yes, hi, can I help you?”

Meg the math teacher rolls her eyes at him, faking annoyance. “Apparently a certain English teacher who likes to dress like a grandpa is currently being held up helping the librarian clean up after a horde of sixteen-year olds who've never seen a book up close and asked me to tell his boyfriend that he's running a few minutes late and to wait for him by the main entrance. Like I'm some sort of errand boy. Girl. Person.”

“Oh, okay,” Kurt says, “Thanks for letting me know!” Then he frowns, rolling his eyes right back at her. “And that's _husband_ , not boyfriend, for god's sake, Meg, you were _at our wedding_ three months ago.”

“Yeah, whatever,” she sighs, shrugging. “We still on for that double date on Sunday?”

“Sure,” he confirms, “Our place. Tell Celia that Blaine found the book she wanted to borrow.” 

She nods, grins, and he finishes packing up the rest of his things, waving at her as she turns to go.

**

“Ready to go home?” Blaine asks, slipping an arm around Kurt's waist as he shows up next to him, leaning up to kiss his cheek before sticking his head outside tentatively. “It's still raining pretty hard -”

“We can warm each other up at home,” Kurt promises. “I kind of like the rain.”

“It was raining the first time you kissed me,” Blaine says, his smile wide and happy as he grips Kurt's hand tighter.

“I remember,” Kurt says, kissing him once on the lips, quickly, affectionately, right there in the school hallway before they're sprinting across the parking lot toward their car hand in hand. They'll go home, together, curl up with a cup of tea and each other and the rain pattering on the windows of their small house, the two of them safe and warm cuddled up on the couch.

So much to be looking forward to.


End file.
